


I don't have to come out and say my choice

by shocked_into_shame



Category: The Smiths
Genre: Angst, Break Up, First Kiss, M/M, Songfic, almost, also i love angie but you really can't tell by my writing, sorry about that, this is so fucking angsty and stupidly dramatic so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-24
Updated: 2015-04-24
Packaged: 2018-03-25 12:03:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3809689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shocked_into_shame/pseuds/shocked_into_shame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One hot night in July of 1987, Johnny makes his choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I don't have to come out and say my choice

**Author's Note:**

> this is dramatic

The thick summer air clings to Johnny's skin. It's the warmest night he can recall this year, and, with a twinge of bitterness, he laughs at the idea of this being some sort of pathetic fallacy. He's sweating with nerves on the inside, so of course the weather has forced his exterior to be the same. It's late, almost 10 PM, and maybe this can- _should_ \- wait for tomorrow. But he's tired of waiting, tired of dealing with these feelings in silence. He's just so tired. 

With some reluctance, he knocks at the door to Morrissey's flat. He waits outside for the longest minute of his life before Moz answers, clad in a green silk robe, hair askew and thick rimmed glasses perched on the tip of his nose. 

“Did I wake you up?” he asks at the sight. 

Moz smiles and rubs at one of his cerulean eyes groggily. “No, I was just reading in bed. I wasn't quite yet asleep. Come in, I suppose.” 

Johnny follows Moz into his flat, familiar with his surroundings. They've spent so much time here, on this couch, in this sitting room, writing and laughing and bickering and... Johnny's heart is somewhere in his throat.

“Do you want to sit, Johnny?” The black haired man shakes his head, and there must be something in his facial expression because suddenly Moz is placing a hand on his shoulder and looking deeply into his eyes. “What's wrong?”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Johnny mutters as he breaks eye contact. He can't do this. He can't look into his best friend's eyes and completely destroy everything. But he's got to. “I can't keep doing this. I can't... I'm leaving the band.”

Johnny gives Moz credit for how well he internalizes his very obvious grief over the situation. He looks like he's bouncing between laughing, crying, and screaming in Johnny's face, and Johnny almost wishes he'd just pick one instead of staring at him with a forced blank look. Without thinking, Johnny shuffles to Moz's record player, turning on the music without paying attention to what 45 is queued up. 

“ _A closet full of glad rags. All tucked away in a bed that's swank.”_

Moz's lower lip trembles and his hands shake and Johnny feels like the floor is falling apart beneath him. 

“I suppose we've come full circle...” Moz muses in a choked voice. “We begin and end The Smiths with this song.” 

Ain't this just the most dramatic way to do this. Johnny looks at the ceiling, the floor,  _anything_ but Moz's face. Anything but his sweet, earnest,  _beautiful_ face... Fuck. This is why. This is  _exactly_ why he has to end this thing while he can. These feelings have crept up on him so suddenly. He's terrified, absolutely fucking terrified about what he feels for Morrissey. 

“Moz, you gotta believe me when I tell you that I love this band just as much as you do. But I can't be the lead guitarist and the manager and everything else at once. I just can't deal with the stress of all this anymore...” his voice cracks against his will, and before he can register what's happening, thin arms are wrapping around him tightly. 

“Johnny, my Johnny,” Moz says so quietly he almost can't hear it over the Marvellettes, but he _does_ hear it, and that fucking breaks him. They've begun to sway slightly to the music, clutching at each other like they can't survive without being as close to each other as possible

“This song's too damn fast to slow dance to,” he murmurs, and he feels Moz's body shake against him, in either laughter or tears or perhaps both. “I wish.. I wish I wasn't... I wish I hadn't rushed into everything with Angie so soon.” 

“Don't say that,” Moz chastises, burrowing his face in Johnny's hair. “You love Angie. Marrying Angie is the best thing you've ever done.”

“I love you.” 

“Don't _say_ that,” Moz replies, harsher than he's ever spoken to him, and Johnny thinks that he'd feel the sting of it if it weren't for the fact that he is surrounded by warmth and Morrisey's cologne. “Don't you dare throw away everything you have because of me. I'm not worth that, Johnny.” He sighs, knows that Moz is right. His marriage to Angie _is_ important to him, and he loves Angie, but he is also consumed by feelings for Morrissey, feelings that stem from a deep, dark place inside of him that he doesn't understand. “So if breaking up the Smiths is what you think you need to do, Johnny, to face this or get over this so you can be the best husband you can be, then I'm not going to stop you.”

The song ends and Johnny feels like he's going to cry. It's completely uncharacteristic of him, but he feels tears threatening to escape. If anything, it makes him clutch tighter to Morrissey, longing for some kind of comfort that he knows he won't find in Moz's embrace. 

“Can you at least tell me if I'm imagining this... thing between us?” 

Morrissey sighs and unravels his arms from Johnny's small frame, and the shorter man instantly feels the loss. “I didn't want you to know this, Johnny, but I've been in love with you since you chose  _You're the One_ from my record collection.” 

What follows is something that Johnny will regret for the rest of his life. It will keep him up at night. The memory of it will crawl through his eyes and his ears and his nostrils and into his veins and it will seep from every pore of his skin. It will cling to the shirt he's wearing like cigarette smoke, and in a hasty move on one desperate night he will burn this shirt. He'll futilely attempt to burn the memory along with his clothes. He'll despairingly wish that these feelings never existed, that this hot July night never happened. But it will all be in vain. 

He grabs the sides of Morrissey's face and pulls him down, smashing their lips together in a kiss that's brutal, like a slap. It isn't at all what he had dreamed about feeling with Moz. All of his indulgent fantasies were filled with soft, chaste kisses and contented sighs, he and this beautiful man surrounded by silk and soft warmth. But this kiss is all rough and he feels the silk of Morrissey's robe against him, but it's hot to the touch. He's hot all over, crushed by the heat of the weather and the heat of this kiss, and it hurts. God, this  _burns_ . All of this is scalding to the touch. He feels like he's on fire as their tongues tease at each other. He feels trapped and burning and  _alive._ For the first time in 6 months he feels like a real, living breathing person instead of a shell. But it hurts. It hurts so badly because he knows this is all he's going to get. 

Morrissey pulls away suddenly, gasping for breath. He looks at Johnny like a wounded animal, like the guitarist had just punched him in the jaw. “Get out,” he says in a low voice, backing away like Johnny's going to attack at any minute. “I won't let you do this. I'm not right for you, Johnny. Get out.” Johnny knows exactly what he's doing. Morrissey is, for once, being the sensible one, and he isn't sure if he feels grateful or enraged. “The Smiths are over. Whatever  _this_ is is over. Believe me. None of this is worth sacrificing your relationship with Angie.” 

Johnny nods and reaches out to hug Moz in goodbye, but chickens out. He can't bear to touch or be touched right now. Without a second glance, he walks out of Moz's flat. The minute the door closes behind him he crumples, sitting on Morrissey's front porch overtaken by dry sobs that shake him to the core

_The Smiths are over._

When he gets home, he crawls into bed with his wife and feels vaguely like he's never going to be the same again. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Um I don't know what this is but it's dramatic as fuck. I'm sorry?? damn.  
> also Johnny and Angie's marriage is actually perfect so this is all total bullshit


End file.
